Yes, though fortunately companies like ID and Epic, which have a history of porting their Quakes and Unreal Tournaments to Linux, are going to release some upcoming games, supposedly, for Linux. At least it's *something*.:) Unfortunately you can't pre-order Quake Wars for Linux yet, at least not on the gaming sites I've checked. I don't know if the beta was available for Linux either, but I sort of doubt it. Obviously preference is given to the most common platforms first, and the ones backed by large corporations with lots of money to push around. I am actually glad that MS is putting Vista at the top of game boxes now. No more "PC and Mac" crap that tells you nothing about the OS it can run on.
The war is a good way to spread the word about patents and their negative effects though, especially in the realms of "ideas" like software. Ideas that have been around since...well, hell, I'm sure some of the ideas for software and communication go back hundreds of years.
First off, Steve Balmer is running MS. A jock. With basically the same mentality as jocks from high school. I doubt he will cave in, he'll probably be a jerk to his last breath. Plus, they have way too much dominance still to have the will to play nicely with others. Companies like Intel and IBM are very big as well but get along much better with open source, though most of that could be due to the fact that they aren't really in the software business. MS has gotten to where it has by being a stock broker (buying and selling companies and crap) and playing the law with it's lawyers. Lets see what happens when they are forced to innovate, or die. Maybe they're too used to being bullies, so will just die. A lot of people would like to see that happen. =P Besides, the prospect of using Microsoft Linux/BSD/Unix IS freaky. Something...stable...from MS???
I like installing 10 or so different desktop environments and window managers just to play with and see how they are doing, but I'm a freak who loves making those boxes checked in Synaptic Package Manager.:) I just go with Ubuntu, and add other stuff later.
You're right, you always have a choice, and an opinion, and I gave you mine, and you gave me yours, about the things we like and dislike and about the fact that you have a choice. We agree, yay! Now, stick with and help out open source, because there are other benefits like standardization (which is very hard for commercial software to achieve) along with the freedom to control everything. For those companies out there who want a better business model, http://www.opendevelopmentnetwork.org/ is a solution for them that myself and others have been working on. Or at least, thought about working on. It's mostly just a thought at this point due to lack of time to commit to it and the lack of help.;)
The GPL is very permissive, it permits the *user* to always be in control of the software by preventing companies from restricting it using DRM and other mechanisms. It is *not* permissive to *companies*. So you have the developers in the middle. They sometimes work for the consumers. They sometimes work for the companies. The consumers don't want the companies to be restrictive. If the companies were really catering to the consumers like they should, they would find ways of creating software without restrictions.
(plug)...which is why I'm trying to get a project going for creating a hub for software development commissions at http://www.opendevelopmentnetwork.org/, even though the site is very dead at the moment, and also down.:) (but normally up) (/plug)
You've been on Slashdot how long? I'd just think you would have found that out by now. I don't think anyone is "expecting" Nvidia to open source their 3D drivers anytime soon, but doing so gives control back to us, the consumers. Or at least, it helps.:) I know some of you may be used to buying things that are completely controlled by contracts/EULAs/DRM/binaries, but back in the old days, consumers actually had rights to do what they pleased with their stuff, for the most part that is, including tinkering, modifying, selling, duplicating, sharing, etc.:)
Equivalent to the open source movement in the physical realm is the Maker Fair http://makerfaire.com/ which promotes basically the same agenda. OK, so the Maker Fair is much much smaller, but still.
Just because some of you believe that we should all bend over for the Man because you're used to it, give up our freedoms for security or because some company would LIKE to control most every aspect of your life and force you to watch their dumb advertisements no matter how many times you click the menu button on your DVD remote (yes, it pisses me off), doesn't mean that we should, and that everyone who doesn't like it should shut the hell up about it and accept oppression.
Yes that's a great summary, and regardless of whether or not Firefox or IE is first to be patched, at least Firefox CAN be patched by us, instead of relying on one single company. 0p3n 50r53 15 t3h b35t 4 h4x0rz. Even if it's not actually...you know...hacking. Go go grey hat machine!
Well I hope they will be willing and able to save some of their work. Hopefully the work is modular and standardized so it can be moved to other distros, or any improved code merged with competing programs.:) I think most Windows users will enjoy Kubuntu or Ubuntu (or others) more than Suse, I hated their package manager mainly because it's so incredibly slow. Also, even though supposedly it could use RPMs, I would usually get some errors to prevent installing them. That was 10.1, maybe 10.2 is better, not that I really care anymore.
My idea as well, our system is ridiculous. The middleman is making tons of money. At least we have some competition between insurance companies to provide lower costs, but they are still profiting from consumers, there is money lost there, it's the stupidest system ever. The money needs to be accounted for, and there are many ways you could make this work, but here is one idea:
You deposit so much money per month into a fund for paying for emergencies. Once the account reaches a certain limit, perhaps even determinant on your living situation (just like insurance companies determine your "risk factor"), you no longer have to pay money into the account. It's a required savings, so that if you do have a problem with health or an auto accident or whatever, that particular fund can be used to draw from. The incentive would be to not have to dip into it, because if you did you'd have to start filling it back up again. These funds could even be transferred to children or family members upon death, etc. The safer you are, the less you ever have to pay, and the middleman is eliminated.
Yep it's listed in there. What he meant of course is that you shouldn't market Linux as "Windows Lite", it's a Windows replacement in a sense yes, but don't market it that it can run Windows programs too. Wine is pretty good and it's list of compatible apps is always growing, but there are tweaks needed for many things and there are a lot of things it can't run. Definitely don't market to n00blets that it will run their Windows apps, that would be very unwise, but you might mention that Wine for Linux can run SOME Windows applications.
The only thing missing is some form of Bootcamp: Linux Edition (UboontuCamp? nah...) so people can play their games.
You mean Grub, that gets installed by default, and even if Windows is taking up the whole hard drive the Ubuntu installer will automatically guide you in shrinking it to make room for itself? So, yeah, that's not really missing. Perhaps you're wanting to add more eye candy to Grub.:) Lilo I think can do more in terms of eye candy, but it would be nice to see something as smooth as EFI on Macs.
You have to balance short term and long term wants. In the short term, there may be commercial solutions and it may have been a smart choice in the short-term. However, if the money was instead put into hardware that is compatible with Linux, or in a support company to solve your instability issues, it could be a much better decision. Even if it was more expensive in short-term, it'd be made up for in the long-term. If these fixes were released back into the projects, which they should be, it'd help everyone. Linux is freedom and power in numbers, why not put your money there instead?:)
"Novell has taken issue..." HA, yeah, for PR purposes. The fact that you shouldn't have to pay MS to use Linux is obvious, the patent deal means nothing less and Novell knows that, they just don't like suffering for it and want to improve their image.
This will go down in history as one of the many attempts of a dying company to continue having a foothold on the industry. Snap, no I did-n't. But seriously, no one cares about this, we already have this technology.
Any standard, if it is a real standard, should be completely uncontrolled. Does MS have a patent on this so-called standard? Is it actually an open standard? From what I've, you know, actually witnessed myself, is that whenever MS calls something an open standard, what they really mean is a standard for them that somehow relies upon their technologies so that it isn't actually as "open" as it first seems. MS is free to innovate, but creating something controlled and proprietary that is supposed to be accepted as an open standard *would* be bad. Do you honestly think MS would make something completely uncontrolled that is an actual improvement over current open technologies, for the good of everyone? If they have, that would be a first to my knowledge.
Gnash is one that I know of, it seems to be just a replacement for Flash.
You're right that MS can "invent" whatever technologies they want to, but unfortunately anything that relates to the infrastructure of the Internet needs to be open and cross-platform. Companies like Google, from what I've seen so far, at least encourage everyone to keep on standards that everyone can use. MS loves to suggest things are free to use, but then makes them depend on certain things which actually aren't free. So they lay the trap, it becomes popular, then they start strong arming. If you haven't seen this from MS, you've been living under a rock.
Open standards will and should win, closed are a threat. That's the point.
Sounds like a wonderful idea, but what about gnash? It is open, and can view flash files up to Flash version 7 from last I heard. Perhaps building upon it would be a good decision?
Right, and a lot of school districts would switch if the educational software they needed was available. Edubuntu I'm sure offers some good things, but of course I'm sure there's a lot more that is still needed. There are several niches to be filled in many areas.
I was considering trying to put together a new site based on something other than simple forums. While forums can be used to a degree, I felt a Digg system may be closer to what I want, but would have to be modified, or perhaps a rewrite from scratch would be easier. Perhaps a wiki would be best for collecting ideas for a new site layout. We also need to spread the word about the project, but I'm scared of being hit too hard because of my local hosting bandwidth. We'll see how that goes I guess.:)
I may submit a few articles to various Linux sites to see if they can ask the community what they think about the project, and give it some attention. Scared of slashdotting though as I'm sure it'd kill my connection if it was ever posted. May move it to GoDaddy. If you know of anyone who may be interested in such a project, have them head to the forums or chat room. Need a meeting place at the very lease.:)
The original article is too simple: A problem was found, it was fixed. Obviously any follow-up conversation is going to be about the "bigger picture". Comparing open source to closed source isn't off topic. Holes are often found faster in open code, and stays hidden in closed which means problems don't get fixed as easily. Many posters here may be overly anti-Microsoft/pro-Linux, you're right, but watch it that you aren't being overly pro-Microsoft/anti-Linux when someone posts a fair and truthful response comparing the two.
I'm going to try to nail together an outline for a project idea for how to get something like this out there and attractive so that this can get rolling, because all I've heard is "that sounds like a good idea" which just makes me want to get this going more. I know that *I* would also be very willing to pay to get some good programs, especially games and video editing software, and I know school districts would be interested in educational software to solve their needs so they could switch easily over to Linux and save even more money.
I have so many ideas for Linux in so many areas, but it's just frustrating that it's an up-hill battle at first, and for Linux in general. Getting more games on Linux would make it's popularity skyrocket and any kind of adoption increase for Linux is good for everyone.
I wonder if the FSF really has completely solved the problem economically though. As of right now there are certain areas in which Free Software lags behind proprietary software. The gaps are shrinking though of course, and in a matter of time perhaps the FSF will have completely solved the demand for software, and good, restriction-free software at that. There are some interesting market pressures at work, and I wonder if the Free Software forces will be able to fulfill every consumer need. Consumers want new and fresh constantly, and even though the nature of Free Software means there is an increasingly diverse number of programs and modifications to programs, will the development speed be sufficient to quench consumer thirst without paid help?
I'm working on a project that to attempt to solve the problem of the gap between Free Software and proprietary that exists in some areas, for instance in education and the gaming industry. If this problem is temporary remains to be seen, but for now I think it's a potential solution. I'm a bit shy about making it public as there are several things I'm still trying to figure out, and I'm not happy with the wording in certain places, and the ideas are pretty random. For now it's still "hidden" behind my index.html file because I'm still trying to write everything, but it's somewhat nearing being "ready" (at least for discussion). I would like feedback if anyone is interested.:) Oh, and the title doesn't display correctly in IE and I haven't figured out why yet, but most slashdotters use Firefox or Opera any way I imagine, or any other browsers that actually conform to web standards. Open Development Network About Page
Just a random pondering here, but as the pool of Free Software increases, it becomes more difficult for proprietary software companies since they are either forced to rebuild everything from the ground up or pay for the use of other proprietary code. You see it in graphics engines a lot, for instance. I wonder if the costs for proprietary software developers to use such proprietary code will go down, or up, as Free Software competes more with it? If it becomes more expensive, it will be more difficult for proprietary software developers to stay in business and could cause a complete collapse of the proprietary software model as it could be just too expensive to catch up. Perhaps the pressure will make the costs lower though in order to be able to compete with Free Software, but at lower costs the developers would get paid less, and projects which pay more that are for creating Free Software would look much more appealing.
Every time I've looked, I've found when all the hardware components are made equal, the Linux version is always more expensive. The Windows version offers "free upgrades" on this or that, while the Linux models don't. Feel free to specify the two models you used in your comparison, or the single model that offered both Windows or Linux.
If Dell offered one model, with either Linux or Windows selectable in the customization menu, that would really hurt MS, but so far I've never seen it on their site.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, though fortunately companies like ID and Epic, which have a history of porting their Quakes and Unreal Tournaments to Linux, are going to release some upcoming games, supposedly, for Linux. At least it's *something*. :) Unfortunately you can't pre-order Quake Wars for Linux yet, at least not on the gaming sites I've checked. I don't know if the beta was available for Linux either, but I sort of doubt it. Obviously preference is given to the most common platforms first, and the ones backed by large corporations with lots of money to push around. I am actually glad that MS is putting Vista at the top of game boxes now. No more "PC and Mac" crap that tells you nothing about the OS it can run on.
The war is a good way to spread the word about patents and their negative effects though, especially in the realms of "ideas" like software. Ideas that have been around since...well, hell, I'm sure some of the ideas for software and communication go back hundreds of years.
First off, Steve Balmer is running MS. A jock. With basically the same mentality as jocks from high school. I doubt he will cave in, he'll probably be a jerk to his last breath. Plus, they have way too much dominance still to have the will to play nicely with others. Companies like Intel and IBM are very big as well but get along much better with open source, though most of that could be due to the fact that they aren't really in the software business. MS has gotten to where it has by being a stock broker (buying and selling companies and crap) and playing the law with it's lawyers. Lets see what happens when they are forced to innovate, or die. Maybe they're too used to being bullies, so will just die. A lot of people would like to see that happen. =P Besides, the prospect of using Microsoft Linux/BSD/Unix IS freaky. Something...stable...from MS???
I like installing 10 or so different desktop environments and window managers just to play with and see how they are doing, but I'm a freak who loves making those boxes checked in Synaptic Package Manager. :) I just go with Ubuntu, and add other stuff later.
HOW DARE YOU SHARE INFORMATION!!! What do you think this is, the age of the intarwebz?
You're right, you always have a choice, and an opinion, and I gave you mine, and you gave me yours, about the things we like and dislike and about the fact that you have a choice. We agree, yay! Now, stick with and help out open source, because there are other benefits like standardization (which is very hard for commercial software to achieve) along with the freedom to control everything. For those companies out there who want a better business model, http://www.opendevelopmentnetwork.org/ is a solution for them that myself and others have been working on. Or at least, thought about working on. It's mostly just a thought at this point due to lack of time to commit to it and the lack of help. ;)
The GPL is very permissive, it permits the *user* to always be in control of the software by preventing companies from restricting it using DRM and other mechanisms. It is *not* permissive to *companies*. So you have the developers in the middle. They sometimes work for the consumers. They sometimes work for the companies. The consumers don't want the companies to be restrictive. If the companies were really catering to the consumers like they should, they would find ways of creating software without restrictions.
:) (but normally up) (/plug)
(plug)...which is why I'm trying to get a project going for creating a hub for software development commissions at http://www.opendevelopmentnetwork.org/, even though the site is very dead at the moment, and also down.
You've been on Slashdot how long? I'd just think you would have found that out by now. I don't think anyone is "expecting" Nvidia to open source their 3D drivers anytime soon, but doing so gives control back to us, the consumers. Or at least, it helps. :) I know some of you may be used to buying things that are completely controlled by contracts/EULAs/DRM/binaries, but back in the old days, consumers actually had rights to do what they pleased with their stuff, for the most part that is, including tinkering, modifying, selling, duplicating, sharing, etc. :)
Equivalent to the open source movement in the physical realm is the Maker Fair http://makerfaire.com/ which promotes basically the same agenda. OK, so the Maker Fair is much much smaller, but still.
Just because some of you believe that we should all bend over for the Man because you're used to it, give up our freedoms for security or because some company would LIKE to control most every aspect of your life and force you to watch their dumb advertisements no matter how many times you click the menu button on your DVD remote (yes, it pisses me off), doesn't mean that we should, and that everyone who doesn't like it should shut the hell up about it and accept oppression.
Yes that's a great summary, and regardless of whether or not Firefox or IE is first to be patched, at least Firefox CAN be patched by us, instead of relying on one single company. 0p3n 50r53 15 t3h b35t 4 h4x0rz. Even if it's not actually...you know...hacking. Go go grey hat machine!
Well I hope they will be willing and able to save some of their work. Hopefully the work is modular and standardized so it can be moved to other distros, or any improved code merged with competing programs. :) I think most Windows users will enjoy Kubuntu or Ubuntu (or others) more than Suse, I hated their package manager mainly because it's so incredibly slow. Also, even though supposedly it could use RPMs, I would usually get some errors to prevent installing them. That was 10.1, maybe 10.2 is better, not that I really care anymore.
My idea as well, our system is ridiculous. The middleman is making tons of money. At least we have some competition between insurance companies to provide lower costs, but they are still profiting from consumers, there is money lost there, it's the stupidest system ever. The money needs to be accounted for, and there are many ways you could make this work, but here is one idea:
You deposit so much money per month into a fund for paying for emergencies. Once the account reaches a certain limit, perhaps even determinant on your living situation (just like insurance companies determine your "risk factor"), you no longer have to pay money into the account. It's a required savings, so that if you do have a problem with health or an auto accident or whatever, that particular fund can be used to draw from. The incentive would be to not have to dip into it, because if you did you'd have to start filling it back up again. These funds could even be transferred to children or family members upon death, etc. The safer you are, the less you ever have to pay, and the middleman is eliminated.
Yep it's listed in there. What he meant of course is that you shouldn't market Linux as "Windows Lite", it's a Windows replacement in a sense yes, but don't market it that it can run Windows programs too. Wine is pretty good and it's list of compatible apps is always growing, but there are tweaks needed for many things and there are a lot of things it can't run. Definitely don't market to n00blets that it will run their Windows apps, that would be very unwise, but you might mention that Wine for Linux can run SOME Windows applications.
The only thing missing is some form of Bootcamp: Linux Edition (UboontuCamp? nah...) so people can play their games.
:) Lilo I think can do more in terms of eye candy, but it would be nice to see something as smooth as EFI on Macs.
You mean Grub, that gets installed by default, and even if Windows is taking up the whole hard drive the Ubuntu installer will automatically guide you in shrinking it to make room for itself? So, yeah, that's not really missing. Perhaps you're wanting to add more eye candy to Grub.
You have to balance short term and long term wants. In the short term, there may be commercial solutions and it may have been a smart choice in the short-term. However, if the money was instead put into hardware that is compatible with Linux, or in a support company to solve your instability issues, it could be a much better decision. Even if it was more expensive in short-term, it'd be made up for in the long-term. If these fixes were released back into the projects, which they should be, it'd help everyone. Linux is freedom and power in numbers, why not put your money there instead? :)
"Novell has taken issue..." HA, yeah, for PR purposes. The fact that you shouldn't have to pay MS to use Linux is obvious, the patent deal means nothing less and Novell knows that, they just don't like suffering for it and want to improve their image.
This will go down in history as one of the many attempts of a dying company to continue having a foothold on the industry. Snap, no I did-n't. But seriously, no one cares about this, we already have this technology.
Any standard, if it is a real standard, should be completely uncontrolled. Does MS have a patent on this so-called standard? Is it actually an open standard? From what I've, you know, actually witnessed myself, is that whenever MS calls something an open standard, what they really mean is a standard for them that somehow relies upon their technologies so that it isn't actually as "open" as it first seems. MS is free to innovate, but creating something controlled and proprietary that is supposed to be accepted as an open standard *would* be bad. Do you honestly think MS would make something completely uncontrolled that is an actual improvement over current open technologies, for the good of everyone? If they have, that would be a first to my knowledge.
Gnash is one that I know of, it seems to be just a replacement for Flash.
You're right that MS can "invent" whatever technologies they want to, but unfortunately anything that relates to the infrastructure of the Internet needs to be open and cross-platform. Companies like Google, from what I've seen so far, at least encourage everyone to keep on standards that everyone can use. MS loves to suggest things are free to use, but then makes them depend on certain things which actually aren't free. So they lay the trap, it becomes popular, then they start strong arming. If you haven't seen this from MS, you've been living under a rock.
Open standards will and should win, closed are a threat. That's the point.
Sounds like a wonderful idea, but what about gnash? It is open, and can view flash files up to Flash version 7 from last I heard. Perhaps building upon it would be a good decision?
Right, and a lot of school districts would switch if the educational software they needed was available. Edubuntu I'm sure offers some good things, but of course I'm sure there's a lot more that is still needed. There are several niches to be filled in many areas.
:)
:)
I was considering trying to put together a new site based on something other than simple forums. While forums can be used to a degree, I felt a Digg system may be closer to what I want, but would have to be modified, or perhaps a rewrite from scratch would be easier. Perhaps a wiki would be best for collecting ideas for a new site layout. We also need to spread the word about the project, but I'm scared of being hit too hard because of my local hosting bandwidth. We'll see how that goes I guess.
I may submit a few articles to various Linux sites to see if they can ask the community what they think about the project, and give it some attention. Scared of slashdotting though as I'm sure it'd kill my connection if it was ever posted. May move it to GoDaddy. If you know of anyone who may be interested in such a project, have them head to the forums or chat room. Need a meeting place at the very lease.
The original article is too simple: A problem was found, it was fixed. Obviously any follow-up conversation is going to be about the "bigger picture". Comparing open source to closed source isn't off topic. Holes are often found faster in open code, and stays hidden in closed which means problems don't get fixed as easily. Many posters here may be overly anti-Microsoft/pro-Linux, you're right, but watch it that you aren't being overly pro-Microsoft/anti-Linux when someone posts a fair and truthful response comparing the two.
Thanks, know of anyone who wants to help? ;)
I'm going to try to nail together an outline for a project idea for how to get something like this out there and attractive so that this can get rolling, because all I've heard is "that sounds like a good idea" which just makes me want to get this going more. I know that *I* would also be very willing to pay to get some good programs, especially games and video editing software, and I know school districts would be interested in educational software to solve their needs so they could switch easily over to Linux and save even more money.
I have so many ideas for Linux in so many areas, but it's just frustrating that it's an up-hill battle at first, and for Linux in general. Getting more games on Linux would make it's popularity skyrocket and any kind of adoption increase for Linux is good for everyone.
...Giddy Golpher!
I wonder if the FSF really has completely solved the problem economically though. As of right now there are certain areas in which Free Software lags behind proprietary software. The gaps are shrinking though of course, and in a matter of time perhaps the FSF will have completely solved the demand for software, and good, restriction-free software at that. There are some interesting market pressures at work, and I wonder if the Free Software forces will be able to fulfill every consumer need. Consumers want new and fresh constantly, and even though the nature of Free Software means there is an increasingly diverse number of programs and modifications to programs, will the development speed be sufficient to quench consumer thirst without paid help?
I'm working on a project that to attempt to solve the problem of the gap between Free Software and proprietary that exists in some areas, for instance in education and the gaming industry. If this problem is temporary remains to be seen, but for now I think it's a potential solution. I'm a bit shy about making it public as there are several things I'm still trying to figure out, and I'm not happy with the wording in certain places, and the ideas are pretty random. For now it's still "hidden" behind my index.html file because I'm still trying to write everything, but it's somewhat nearing being "ready" (at least for discussion). I would like feedback if anyone is interested. :) Oh, and the title doesn't display correctly in IE and I haven't figured out why yet, but most slashdotters use Firefox or Opera any way I imagine, or any other browsers that actually conform to web standards. Open Development Network About Page
Just a random pondering here, but as the pool of Free Software increases, it becomes more difficult for proprietary software companies since they are either forced to rebuild everything from the ground up or pay for the use of other proprietary code. You see it in graphics engines a lot, for instance. I wonder if the costs for proprietary software developers to use such proprietary code will go down, or up, as Free Software competes more with it? If it becomes more expensive, it will be more difficult for proprietary software developers to stay in business and could cause a complete collapse of the proprietary software model as it could be just too expensive to catch up. Perhaps the pressure will make the costs lower though in order to be able to compete with Free Software, but at lower costs the developers would get paid less, and projects which pay more that are for creating Free Software would look much more appealing.
Every time I've looked, I've found when all the hardware components are made equal, the Linux version is always more expensive. The Windows version offers "free upgrades" on this or that, while the Linux models don't. Feel free to specify the two models you used in your comparison, or the single model that offered both Windows or Linux.
If Dell offered one model, with either Linux or Windows selectable in the customization menu, that would really hurt MS, but so far I've never seen it on their site.